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[Wanoah]

When I first started playing in 2004, the large guns on battleships could track frigates fairly well. Everyone trained the skills and did everything they could to get in a battleship as soon as they possibly could, because it was the only way to be competitive in the game. Cruisers were just something you put up with until you could fly a battleship. It made sense from a gameplay perspective to stop battleships being the 'I win' button of their day.

At the time, I liked frigates and I liked the 'new' interceptors, so I welcomed the change. Ultimately, though, the basic premise of Eve combat has always been a bit flawed, I suppose. It has always devolved to people attempting to apply the maximum amount of damage on a target in the shortest time possible and none of the additions over the years have materially changed that.

[orange]

(Eve Combat) has always devolved to people attempting to apply the maximum amount of damage on a target in the shortest time possible and none of the additions over the years have materially changed that.

This could be applied to the real world to a large extent.  We tend to only develop more nuanced capabilities when the desired effects are themselves more nuanced.   If the goal is only ever to destroy/kill the other guys' ships/stuff/people faster than they can do the same to yours, it makes sense to pursue maximum damage in the shortest amount of time and to maximize your defensive capabilities.

[Desiderya]

Which is the same in every game, PvP or not. Focus fire, then try to minimize overkill.

[Wanoah]

I think a game might be more interesting if you design in ways of mitigating the overriding power of DPS. It's relatively easy in a single player game, of course. In MMOs? The players will always try and bring the numbers to ensure victory.

In Eve, to make battleships (and larger ships) 'make sense' you would probably need to completely rethink the weaponry. I imagine you'd have to drop the racial differences in favour of a 'horses for courses' approach. For example: rail guns and projectiles would be for pounding static targets, missiles would be for ship-to-ship fighting and lasers / blasters would be for point defence vs missiles. A battleship might fit a mix of launchers and point defence weaponry, or you might go with certain ship classes having a screening role and being point defence type ships. There's plenty of ways you could reimagine combat in Eve, and just because the current system has been around for the best part of a decade, it doesn't mean that it was ever right or the best available. You'd probably be looking at Eve 2 for anything to change radically though.